When the dragon gave me my marching orders to go shopping for life insurance, I wasn’t exactly overcome with joy. Well who would? There’s always something better on Sky Sports.
Anyway the media tells us that we’re in the worst recession for 25 years. So in my book, now’s not a good time to increase the family’s expenditure. But the dragon insisted. And when she insists …… well you just have to listen!
Her specific instructions were to buy extra life insurance to pay off our mortgage just in case my in-growing toe nails got infected and gave me septicaemia which would result in a long, lingering death.
She also wanted to make sure that the family would have sufficient income if I lost my IT job at Vodafone. That meant we needed income protection insurance. We discussed it and decided that cover for £1,500 a month would be sufficient. And she didn’t stop there. She also wanted redundancy insurance. This would pay our monthly mortgage with the Halifax if I lost my job. The Halifax had tried to sell me the same type of insurance when we moved house, but it was horrendously expensive. So I made a mental note to sort it out separately - and until now I hadn’t got round to it. Better late than never, eh?
Whilst I was sorting out the dragon’s decrees, I remembered I’d promised myself to check out health insurance. That promise had been standing for 18 months - ever since I’d waited five months for an operation on my wrist, (a one handed IT man is not good for efficiency according to my boss at Vodafone!). So I had a wasp in my trousers about buying health insurance. Unbeknown to the dragon, I slipped health insurance into the shopping list.
I presumed that I could sort out all this insurance online. So being a good IT man, after tea and crumpets at home yesterday I resumed my rightful place behind a computer - with the dragon keeping a beady red eye on me from the kitchen (that’s where we keep her cage).
When I was 18 my Dad made me take out life insurance for £30,000 (I’m not too sure why, but it seemed a good idea at the time!). But that’s not enough for a family man, especially one with a mortgage of £120,000. I know I should have got round to it earlier but better late than never. (Does the dragon know something I don’t? Perhaps her reptilian powers will let her gaze into the future!) Anyway life insurance was my starting point.
My younger brother works for a bank and as you’d expect, he’s drenched in life insurance. But being an honest banker (rare these days I hear!), he told me to use a broker not his bank. Apparently brokers can play off one life insurer against another and get particularly low prices.
So on to Google. To begin with I swept past the sites for the big UK insurers such as Norwich Union, Legal & General and Bupa until I came across a site I’d never heard of before although it was on Google’s first page. It’s called Brokers Online but can be found at www.life-insurance-bureau.co.uk. It transpired that Brokers Online is a co-operative of web sites all working together under the Brokers Online name. Each Brokers Online site specialises in family insurance and family finance. They are actually a pretty slick operation according to the dragon. Praise indeed!
On their life insurance page, Brokers Online provides a comparison service for life insurance and within twenty minutes one a consultant from Click Financial rang me. Click works alongside Brokers Online to provide their life insurance comparison service. The consultant explained that as we had a joint repayment mortgage, we could go for a Joint Decreasing Term Life Insurance policy which were the cheapest form of life insurance. Sounded good to me so within seconds he had a fistful of quotes and went through the three cheapest for me. A company called Fortis was cheapest by a mile and I was assured that they were a big international insurer. So that quote was OK with me and the dragon.
Whilst on the Brokers Online web site, I noticed they also had income protection insurance and redundancy insurance (the latter is also known as unemployment insurance). The site explained that Brokers Online had teamed up with a company called British Insurance to provide these insurances. Apparently British Insurance have been showered with industry awards for their policies. It took me just twelve minutes to get both insurances in the bag and they were a lot cheaper than I’d expected. The dragon was really impressed!
That just left health insurance. Guess what – Brokers Online offered that too! I’d suspected that health Insurance might be complicated and I was right. The web site did try to help but honestly, there are many different types of health insurance policy and there are optional extras as well! The site recognises that health insurance can be difficult for a layman (but not for dragons as they can do anything if they put their tails to it!). So the site organises a specialist health insurance consultant to phone back. That was a great help. I’m all for the simple life. I just submitted some basic information and waited for the call back. I’m glad I did, as left on my own I’m sure I’d have made a mistake. Far easier to talk it through with the consultant. In the end I bought an economy low cost family health insurance policy. It wasn’t exactly the Rolls Royce of policies but it suited our family just fine.
The whole shopping expedition took me 35 minutes online plus 25 minutes on the phone. Not too bad - thanks Brokers Online.
Tags: Life Insurance, life assurance, income insurance, income protection, life cover, critical illness cover, Family Income Benefit, LifeSearch, UK